Search results for: “Alibaba”

Huawei Unveils the Affordable Honor 4C with a 13MP Camera and 5-inch Display

After launching the Huawei P8 at an official event on 15th April, Huawei released yet another handset today, the Honor 4C. With a price tag of 799 Yuan (Rs. 8,150), the phone will directly compete against the Micromax Yu Yureka and Xiaomi Red Mi Note 4G.

From the specs point of view, the 2GB RAM Honor 4C sports a 5-inch 720p display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor and a HiSilicon Kiri 620 Octa-Core chipset. Camera specifications include a 13MP f2.0 aperture primary camera and a 5MP front camera. Internal memory offers 8GB of storage and a microSD slot. It runs on Android 4.4 KitKat and feature a 2,550 mAh battery.

The phone is being offered in black, white, blue, gold and pink color options. For now, the handset is up for sale only in China and will be available through online portals only. The handset will be available on Huawei’s Vmall online store and Alibaba’s Tmall store on 7th May, registration are now open on both the online retailers.

Specifications	Honor 4C
Display	5-inch 720p Display
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor
RAM	2GB
Storage	8GB internal, microSD
Primary Camera	13MP
Front Camera	5MP
Battery	2,550mAh
Price	Rs. 8,150, (tentative)

April 28, 2015

Paytm Steps into E-Commerce Market with the Launch of New Seller App

Indian mobile payment start-up Paytm is forcing itself to the rapidly growing e-commerce market in India. Lately, the online payment platform announced itself as a new-fangled e-commerce company and said it would work with emerging businesses. The start-up firm, aiming to become India’s Taobao, came up with two big announcements -One is the wallet app, and the other is a platform for sellers that allows both individuals and businesses to sell their products.

The Founder and Chief Executive of Paytm owner One97 Communications, Vijay Shekhar Sharma said in a statement –

Everyone is moving to mobile now, but that is what we started with. We see opportunity in enabling payments in everyday use cases.

The mobile payment service has updated its website to tie-up with more sellers. At the top left of the Paytm homepage, users will now see a ‘Become a Seller’ button (a seller app), clicking which small and medium-sized firms can exhibit their products on a widely recognised platform. The emerging businesses can display their catalogue, manage their inventory and orders on Paytm. The listing would be absolutely free, and connecting merchants don’t have to pay any fee for enrolling themselves on Paytm. This will help flourish start-ups as other websites charge 10%-15% commission.

It also launched Paytm Wallet app that allows users to transfer money within the wallets. The app offers users to transfer money to a bank account from the wallet so that they can cash out the required amount. Sharma added to his comments, “We have about 66 million wallets, which we want to take to 100 million by the year end. We’re doing 1 million money transfers a day on the beta version of the wallet app.” Paytm Wallet accounts are RBI approved. A user can make a monthly transaction of maximum Rs. 1 lakh.

Paytm getting financial support by Alibaba’s finance arm Ant Financial presently holds a 25% stake. Eric Jing, Ant Financial’s chief operating officer, stated that it is sharing its learnings from China’s Taobao with the Indian mobile service provider. The company expects to earn over $4 billion (Rs 25,360 crore) by the year end and take onboard 1,00,000 sellers, which is 33,000 as of now. Paytm is spending more than Rs 500 crore on marketing this year.

Paytm kicked off as an online recharge website, and monitoring the recent business trend of operating from mobile, the company planned to turn into an e-commerce company. The increased usage of smartphones and internet availability has paved way for websites to become a mobile-only business. The new investors will strengthen Paytm’s position in India and help gain a stronghold in the country where already established players like Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal enjoy a majority.

April 25, 2015
Flipkart Backer Accel Partners Announces $305 Million Fund to Support Indian Start-Ups

In the past few years, technology sector has seen an upward graph. Many e-commerce websites like Flipkart, BookMyShow, Myntra, and CommonFloor came into existence recently and soon became top-tier consumer markets. One of the major support systems that led to the establishment of these firms, were companies such as Accel Partners, a global venture capital firm. The firm has now launched Accel India IV, a $305 million (Rs. 1,900 crore) fund dedicated to empowering Indian start-ups.

The fund launched by the company this time is double the amount raised by Accel Partners last time. The company provided $155 million in 2011 as a part of Accel India III and $60 in 2008 in Accel India II. The California-based growth equity firm aims at solidifying consumer, enterprise software, and mobile sector along with the healthcare division through the recently raised fund.

According to Subrata Mitra, an official from Accel –

While there is more competition (investors) and more start-ups, some of the better companies have begun to accelerate a lot faster and get a lot bigger. So, yes, we do expect to help build many large companies.

In past few years, the number of smartphone users in the country has increased tremendously. This has stimulated to the growth of many internet-related ventures; hence, making India a marketplace where investors are ready to invest their money.

Many global players have made huge investment in the Indian start-ups. Softbank invested $210 million in Ola Cabs and Housing.com, and on the other hand Alibaba contributed $575 million in One97. The favourable conditions for seed ventures in the nation are attracting financiers to invest in the start-ups. It’s a good proposal for the emerging companies and will help them to establish on a larger scale.

March 25, 2015
Yahoo is Closing Shop in China, Hundreds of Employees to Lose Jobs

Once the top portal on the internet, Yahoo has not seen good days in the recent past. But recently, since the arrival of new age apps and features, Yahoo has somewhat faded into the background. The company is now pulling out from China where it had to shut down its web portal in 2013. This move will result in a loss of jobs of 200 employees.

The consumer side businesses of Yahoo such as the Web portal, Yahoo Music and email service has already been shut down. Yahoo’s only office in Beijing was then transformed into a research facility. Now the company is pulling the curtain down on its entire show in China by shutting down the Beijing facility.

Yahoo’s Chinese business was overseen by Alibaba group. The Beijing facility though was directly controlled by Yahoo and the company employed over 350 employees there. The shutdown will lead to massive layoffs in terms of hundreds. Yahoo has intimated the employees about the shutdown. Yahoo had laid off about 2000 employees in 2012 citing financial woes.

Yahoo’s present CEO Marissa Mayer has been instrumental in turning the company around by taking some unpopular decisions. Her first task in the office as CEO was to shut shop in South Korea. As the services were being ignored for newer services outside US, she decided to bring focus back to America. There were also several layoff’s in India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Middle East. In total, the company has cut between 700-900 jobs since October last year.

The wages were also cited as reasons for the shutdown. Yahoo China employees get twice the salary of their Indian counterparts. Considering there are no consumer side application in the country, it made sense for the company to cut the costs there.

March 19, 2015
China Offers 100% Ownership to Foreign Investors of E-Commerce Companies

China is doing everything in its power to excite foreign investors to come invest their resources in their country. The government of China has now allowed foreign investors to hold 100% stake in e-commerce companies in Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone.

This new policy comes from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Previously the investors needed to partner with a Chinese company to conduct business. They were also only allowed to own 55 percent stake in the company. China aims to gather more access to retailers and consumers outside the country.

The Shanghai Free Trade Zone (SFTZ) was established in 2013. It is the first free trade zone in mainland China and spans across 29 square kilometers. The intention is for the SFTZ to expand gradually to cover the entire 1,210 square kilometres.

Chinese E-Commerce company Alibaba made history by offering a $25 Billion IPO.

At present, there are more than 12,000 companies operating in the SFTZ. This number also includes 1,677 foreign-funded firms. This decision today will help the foreign companies such as Amazon to infiltrate into the Chinese e-commerce space.

The Chinese e-commerce market is profitable and growing at a rapid rate. At present, there are about 330 million online shoppers in the country, which, for perspective, is more than the entire population of the United States. Chinese e-commerce company, Alibaba.com had also shown its might on the NYSE when if offered the biggest IPO in history worth US$ 25 Billion. Alibaba is planning to enter India and was in talks with Snapdeal in September 2014.

January 19, 2015
Yahoo Acquires Video Ad Giant BrightRoll for $640 Million in Cash

The American multinational Internet corporation Yahoo recently acquired video advertising company BrightRoll for $640 million. The acquisition is the second-biggest purchase under CEO Marissa Mayer and was carried out in cash. The company is struggling hard to keep up with its competitors Google and Facebook in ad revenues.

BrightRoll will continue to operate independently ‘with Yahoo’s additional investment and global support.’ The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015. In turn, Yahoo is hoping to revive its share in the US digital marketing industry, which fell to 5.8% in 2013, according to analyst eMarketer, and is expected to dip again this year.

According to Yahoo Chief Marissa Mayer, this deal will turn Yahoo into the largest video advertising platform in the US. Mayer talked that BrightRoll is ‘expected to exceed $100 million this year’ in net revenues. “Acquiring BrightRoll will dramatically strengthen Yahoo’s video advertising platform, making it the largest in the US. BrightRoll is the industry’s leading programmatic video advertising platform for reaching audiences across web, mobile and connected TV. Video is display 2.0. It’s what brand advertisers love. It’s a format that elegantly and easily transitions from broadcast television to PC to mobile and even to wearables. This is why video is a key part of our strategy,” Mayer said in a blogpost.

She said that she thought video could reinvent and replace banner advertising, a mainstay of online ads. Once the market leader, Yahoo is expected to fall on to fourth place this year, according to eMarketer. It was reported in July that the Internet corporation collected less than 3% of online ad revenue last year. Google was on top with nearly 32% ad revenue, while Facebook accounted for about 6%. Microsoft is projected to exceed Yahoo this year.

Yahoo hopes to counter Google’s sheer volume of user-generated videos with professional video content produced by journalist Katie Couric and tech reviewer David Pogue among others. Yahoo was able to buy BrightRoll with cash after it sold shares worth close to $9 billion in the initial public offering of Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba this year.

November 12, 2014
HTC Building Its Own Mobile OS

Rumours of HTC creating their own operating system has been floating around for a couple years. Back in September of 2011, HTC Co-founder and chairman Cher Wang, stated “We can use any OS we want. We are able to make things different from our rivals on the second or third layer of a platform. Our strength lies in understanding an OS, but it does not mean that we have to produce an OS.”

HTC currently relies heavily on the Android OS, plus puts its unique spin with its Sense UI, but this dependance an US-based Google is rumoured to slow. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, HTC, with the assistance from the Chinese government, will forge ahead and produce their own mobile operating system that’s ‘specifically for Chinese consumers.’ Apparently this initiative is part of a bigger play by the government “to encourage the development of a unique local software ecosystem to reduce reliance on Western companies.”

The WSJ report says it isn’t clear whether the mobile OS will be entirely proprietary or built on top of Android — as just like Acer, HTC is part of Google’s Open Handset Alliance, and that means it needs to abide by certain rules laid down by Google.

Acer last year built a phone for China’s Alibaba but it was squelched at the last minute due Google’s intervention. Google even suggested that Acer wouldn’t be allowed to build future Android phones if it moved forward with the Alibaba phone launch. Given that HTC’s smartphone focus is built on Android — it only makes a few Windows Phone devices — the company isn’t in a position to anger Google.

The ambitious reported move by HTC comes as it has been struggling financially. CEO Peter Chou said in the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call that HTC is expecting Q3 revenue to decline as much as 29.3 percent from the amount of revenue it posted in Q2.

[Via]

August 28, 2013
Leaked iPhone 5 Images | Real – Fake ?

iGyaan got images from the popular supplier website Alibaba.com, for cases/screen protectors of the upcoming iPhone 5 ahead of time giving clear indication of the iPhone 5’s design.

As speculated the camera and flash module appear to be separate. and the rumors of dual led round flash seem to be true as well. Several vendors seem to be dealing in products pertaining to the iPhone 5. A quick look at the images reveals the form factor and the design elements as discussed in rumors prior to this.

Although the device in the images has the name iPhone Pro, which puts a big question mark on the authenticity of these images. But, the fact that these vendors are selling products and using a render image means that the device possibly is similar looking to the images if not precisely same.

The image below was found in May, this case had appeared on Alibaba.com which was later taken down.

June 24, 2011